A Window Sill and Several Phone Calls
by morningmagpie
Summary: Hermione was just beginning to convince herself that George wasn't "The One", when BAM! it hit her that he actually was.


Author's Note: A little George/Hermione, because I felt like it. :)

**A Window Sill, Several Phone Calls, and a Dozen Quidditch Games**

I first properly met you when you stepped down from a window sill. You'd been sitting out on the roof and drinking Firewhiskey, and when you came inside, I could make out that your eyes were hazy and smiling. You grinned at me and hugged me even though we had never been good friends, and I could tell, for some reason, that I would end up seeing more of you. I suppose some would call it symbolic: you walking in from the outside of my social sphere to come and say hello to me. I don't really know if I would have called it anything; you were merely a boy who kissed me that night because I asked you to kiss me.

It was only after that night that I might have considered that something like symbolism could be working in my favor. From that time on, I kept running into you. I saw you in the vaguest of places: in supermarkets whose names I can now remember; at bus stops that were taking me to places that I no longer cared about; in small restaurants where you would join me for bland coffee. I thought little of it. For a short while, I entertained the idea that you might be running into me because you wanted to, but I've never been much of a person for disappointment, and I quickly put that thought out of my head.

But yet, persistently, we saw one another. We never ventured into that horrific world of "dating"; I think that both of us were content with just being friends. We saw other people, dodged the questions from coworkers and our friends when they asked us if we were together or why we weren't. It was almost as though someone were leading us down a trail littered with caution signs and stop signs and arrows that pointed into other directions. All of the signs and arrows and cautionary warnings were pointed at the others, at the people who stopped when we walked by and asked for our numbers. That damn red flag would flash in front of our eyes and if we looked at the other, the trail became a little bit less scary. But, as most people who fall for each other often do, we denied it.

The fates, if they must be called something, were trying to tell us something. If we ever entered into a relationship with someone else, it would inevitably end. Our disappointments were exemplified by this failed relationship: I think we were both hoping that our mutual attraction would die.

When we did end a relationship, we would always see each after we'd dealt the final blow (you and I have never been very good at breaking up with people). Traditionally, when you were upset or annoyed, you would go running down the street across from my flat and I would put on my tennis shoes, skip outside my door and go after you. I tried to keep up, my legs stretching long and furious and pounding the pavement. Every time, you would slow your pace for me and go slow so you could tell me what had gone wrong. Generally, you seemed relieved. Sometimes, I even thought you were hinting at me. It startled me at first, because I thought that you were as set at denying our feelings for each other as I was. So I ignored all of it, every single gesture, every glance, every staggering sentence. I was not fond of the idea of being hurt by you.

During this time, we were calling each other nearly every night. The tradition started when you saw me crying on the street corner one day, years ago, when I was making a fool of myself underneath the lamps. I had just been fired; it wasn't the first time it had happened, but it was one of the few jobs I had actually cared for. I was angrily scrubbing the tears off of my face when you came up behind me and grabbed my shoulders and turned me around so I was crying into your shirt. You held onto me until I could feel the curve of your body against mine, until I could finally understand what it meant. When you let me go, you looked at me and told me to call you that night to check in. I nearly laughed; I was sure you had never used a phone before in your life, but you handed me a slip of paper with some numbers on it and I dialed them when I got home. From then on, I called you almost every night to talk about something that had happened during the week. Sometimes I would tell you about the drama at my new job, about the neighbors downstairs who yelled song lyrics in the middle of the night, about the new recipe I had tried the night before, about the fact that I was terrified of what the future might hold. And you listened. You didn't mind my rants or my sarcasm or my taste in music. You didn't mind that I quoted _Hogwarts: A History_ as often as I could. I was different from what you were used to, but I could tell that you liked it.

You called just as often to tell me things; anything was fair game. You talked about the shop, who came and what was selling best. You called to talk about Fred sometimes, explaining how much you missed him. You were working on a new experiment and you wished that you could tell him. You were annoyed by many of the same things that I was: you hated arrogance, you hated intolerance, you hated people who never tried. You liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches more than any other fancy dish you'd ever eaten. You always drank chocolate milk when you watched a movie. You played Quidditch to both clear and fill the hole you said you had. I asked you once what the hole was. You wouldn't tell me. I assumed it was Fred being gone, but for some reason, I didn't really think that was it.

I was twenty-two when I finally admitted to myself that I liked you as more than just my friend. You were not like any other boy I had liked: you were not artistic nor were you a complicated wreck. You were too athletic, too kind; too much of a normal person. I had known you now for four years and I couldn't imagine not seeing you for the next four years and the next four after that.

After I realized that I was falling for you, I tried to focus on something to make me stop. I tried to focus on our differences: the fact that we were both so unlike the other. But this only proved to have the opposite effect. Upon every examination, my faults were corrected by your virtues, and vice versa. I then moved on to absurd details. I thought about your height; you were just barely two inches taller than me. I was tall for a girl: What if I wanted to wear high heels? I thought about what we would look like. Would we look silly? Me, the girl who wore clothes from thrift stores because she didn't really care what she wore, the girl who read books and studied for fun, and you, the boy who played Quidditch and probably hadn't read an entire book from cover to cover in his life. I was successful: I proved to myself that we would not work. But really, it all boiled down to the fact that I did not want to hear your rejection. I did not want to face your refusal. I did not want to see your face fall when I announced my feelings. I hid from you for a while, burying myself in my flat and drinking coffee and staring with trepidation at the phone, hoping that you would forget to call and yet hoping that you wouldn't. You left messages when I didn't answer. You never sounded angry - you were never that sort of person - and only once did I hear you sound confused or unhappy. You asked me to call you back and when I never did, you stopped calling. I knew you well enough by that time to understand: you didn't chase after useless things. Two weeks after your last call, I stared at my phone and considered dialing your number. You were only seven numbers away, only three words away from me, but I couldn't do it. I hid your number in the bottom of my desk even though I had memorized it months before. I tried to forget it, tried to disconnect the little memories in my head that kept me from forgetting it, that kept me from forgetting you, but I never could.

For a few months, I did not see you. I missed being able to call you in the middle of the night. I missed meeting you on the street corner and going for a jog, you laughing as I fell behind and waiting for me at the next street corner. I missed going to the bar and watching the football game with you, trying to explain the rules. I missed when you took me flying, my fear overcome by the fact that you were holding onto me and laughing into my ear. I missed watching stupid movies and throwing popcorn at the screen when the actors said corny lines. I missed dragging you to stores you normally would have had nothing to do with, laughing when you tried on hats that made your ears stick out. I missed the stupid things that I had stupidly considered deal-breakers: the fact that you were only two inches taller than me, the fact that your hair was always cut too short, the fact that you liked Quidditch and pranking more than you liked books. Upon reconsideration, your height allowed for the understanding I had received years ago, when you had held me on the street corner to try and tell me something. When your hair started to grow out enough to hold onto it, it was worth the entire few months of waiting. Your love of sports made me laugh harder than any other book had; the times you tackled me during a game of football (our rendition had been lacking, to say the least) had left me and you laughing for minutes at a time.

I realized how badly I had messed up; you would probably never consider me as an option anymore. You just never enjoyed having to deal with people who were too much trouble. I could hardly blame you. I myself never really liked dealing with someone who was more trouble than they were worth. That was one of the reasons why Ron and I had not worked. We fought too often and didn't enjoy each other's company enough.

For weeks, I wondered about what you were doing. Not to the point of obsession; I hadn't reached that level of insanity just yet. I wondered if you went to the café anymore, if you still stood outside of its doors with uncharacteristic nervousness that kept shrugging your shoulders against the wind. I wondered if you still went jogging early in the morning, breath fogging into the air, cheeks brushed red by the cold, hair swept up off of your forehead. I wondered if you sat by yourself when you rode the bus, wearing that look of confusion and unhappiness. I wondered, selfishly, if you still thought of me.

Life went on, though. I continued to work and I assumed that you had done the same. I tried not to think of you but you just appeared in conversations; I could hardly stop myself from saying your name. You were in every terrible movie, in every coffee drink, on every street corner, until I could not consider living the way I was anymore.

I Apparated to your house in the middle of an afternoon in May. You had just turned twenty-six; I had your present in my hands, the bow crumpled and worn. I walked into the driveway just as the sun was starting to hit the trees and fall beneath them. I could hear something like cooking and laughter from inside of your house and I suddenly knew that my mistake was coming at all. I knew, somehow, that you were in that house with another girl, smiling and throwing pasta into a pot and watching the water boil over. I knew that I had to leave.

My heart slammed into my ribs and I could feel the painful beginning of fear crawl across my skin. I had mere seconds before you noticed that I was there.

The crack of Apparition startled you, though. I could imagine your head tilting to the side of the noise and your eyes squinting in an effort to open up your ears. You probably put down the cutlery in your hands to come out and see me in your driveway. My hair was mussed from the wind, my sweater wrinkled, your present held dismally in my hands.

You stood in your doorway for a long time; I can remember counting seconds. You didn't say anything and you just stared at me until I could feel the skin around my eyes begin to crawl. I wanted to run over to you, say hello, kiss you, something other than the biting silence we were enduring.

No girl came out to stand beside you. You stood alone in that doorway for what seemed like years and I waited with you, waited for that small laugh that I was sure would appear at any moment, trailing ahead of the pretty girl who would step out and link her arm through yours. But she never came.

Your voice was slightly hoarse when you asked me what I was doing there. I could detect your chagrin, your anger, your confusion, and your displeasure at seeing me, but I could also hear your small bit of hope, your small part of relief that I had long ago heard when you were telling me about the girls you'd left.

I looked to my left and saw a little lake that glittered in the sun. The trees had formed a canopy around parts of it and the sunlight fell onto it in slanting traces of luminosity. I turned my face back to yours and you were watching me with something in your features that bespoke of fear. I knew then what you were trying to say. You wanted my answer; you wanted to know why I never returned the phone calls, why I stayed up late at night, replaying your messages, trying to memorize the cadence of your voice before I erased them. You wanted to know why I had forgotten about you for two years, why I was standing here with a stupid gift in my hands. For a moment, I think I saw that you wanted to know if I would stay.

So I told you precisely what I should have told you two years ago.

"I fell in love with you."

There was a heavy pause.

"I'm sorry."

You walked down the steps and then over to me. You stood in front of me for a short moment and then you grabbed my face and kissed me and the colors on the lake were nothing in comparison to the colors that flashed in my mind.

**End Notes**: Reviews would be almost as amazing as kissing George Weasley. Please hit the button!


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